Pakistan & Kashmir

Pakistani prime minister tells MEE threat of conflict over disputed territory is the world’s most dangerous ‘nuclear flashpoint’ Imran Khan speaking to MEE in Islamabad last week (MEE/Huthifa Fayyad) By Peter Oborne and David Hearst India enjoys the same kind of impunity within the international community over its attempts to change the demographic balance of Kashmir that Israel has in the occupied Palestinian territories, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has told Middle East Eye. He accused his counterpart Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, of copying Israel’s playbook by allowing settlers to acquire land in the disputed territory, which has been claimed - and fought over - by both Pakistan and India since 1947. 'Once two nuclear armed countries get into th...

Peter Oborne The prime minister has been vulnerable to attack - both domestically and externally - since coming to power in 2018 Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan watches Pakistan's Air Force fighter jets perform during the Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad on 23 March, 2022 (AFP). Prime Minister Imran Khan’s decision to dissolve the Pakistani parliament to head off a vote of no-confidence has been greeted by global shock and bemusement. That bemusement is misplaced. I’ve covered Pakistani politics over two decades. As a long-term student (and admirer) of the country, I can state with confidence that the real shock is not that Pakistan has been struck by political crisis; it’s that it has taken so long. Khan's honesty makes him fundamentally unsuited to the...

Peter Oborne Lack of condemnation from the US over Khan's politically motivated imprisonment only confirms Washington's long history of preferring dictators pliable to its interests Lawyers in support of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan denounce his arrest during a protest outside the high court in Lahore, on 7 August 2023 (AFP). Last week, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in a penal colony - accused of financing "extremism" and "rehabilitating the Nazi ideology". Quite rightly, the United States and Britain instantly denounced the move, with the US State Department describing the conviction as "an unjust conclusion to an unjust trial". Britain's Foreign Secretary J...

JUNAID KATHJU  Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan visits earthquake victims at a hospital in Mirpur in Kashmir on Sept. 30, 2019. Many Kashmiris believed Khan was their best bet in negotiating with India to find a solution to the Kashmir crisis. (PAKISTAN PRIME MINISTRY/HANDOUT/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES). Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2023, pp. 42-43 Special Report By Junaid Kathju THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in a corruption case has angered many in Indian-administered Kashmir. A resident of Srinagar’s Habba Kadal area, Ghulam Mohammad, 70, said he was in disbelief at seeing the turn of events in a country that claims Kashmir in its entirety and has been supporting a struggle for...

“All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds. Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept. The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Kh...